How have you grown and/or changed as a GM over the years?

[Sacrosanct]

The other day I was reflecting on how I have changed over the years as a GM/DM (well, mostly as a DM, but this applies to any game, not just D&D). I think we all get better at little things, but are there any major changes where you had a complete reversal on how you viewed things?

For the record, I started playing in 1981. I think I first DM'd in 1983 or so. Basic D&D, and then AD&D. Then some other games and homebrew games I created. Most of this topic is on the game I play the most, D&D, so that's where I've noticed the most changes.

For background, 1e (with some 2e elements) has been my favorite edition. When 3e came out, I still played AD&D with the occasional 3e game. When 4e came out, I didn't touch it, and stuck with AD&D. I think I watched a half dozen 4e sessions, and played it all of one time over it's tenure, but that was it. So I've always considered myself an old school gamer. Pro-lethality, pro player skill, pro-improv, pro rules over rules. I've always held a distaste for unusual races, going so far to have had dragonborn and tieflings banned in my campaigns. HP were rolled. Stats were 4d6 drop lowest. XP was earned and tracked.

Now? Over the past few years? I've loosened up on many of my rigid ideals. I'm much more welcoming of unusual races as long as there is an in story reason for it. I use milestone XP more than tracking XP. And I use array instead of rolling more often now. And HP are typically standard. I've embraced bringing more diversity into my campaigns, when for years, it just didn't register on my radar. But there have been other changes as well that are more restrictive, like having rules of no CN characters, or evil PCs unless I know the player very well and know they won't be disruptive.

I can't really put my finger onto why. Maybe because others I game with do the same thing? Maybe because I'm older I want to spend less time on bookkeeping? Do I lose my grognard card (even though I still very much enjoy AD&D).

So what are some of the more major changes you've had happen in your own gaming style as a GM?

 

[Jd Smith1]

I have less hair.

And less paper. I use a laptop, IPad, and Boogie board at the table; I only use pdfs, so other than one small notepad and the occasional prop, I'm paperless.

 

[Quickleaf]

I've become more assertive about interceding when the pulse of the group is off, when they're struggling to recall details, when they're fruitlessly butting heads, or when they're suffering analysis paralysis. Used to be hands-off about this stuff, but now I'm much more active about curating the players' experience. Some players can be their own worst enemies, and I have come to embrace the role of the DM as inciting the players' better angels and softening their worse impulses.

 

[Nebulous]

I have learned to keep the pace of a session going full tilt. No one has time to get bored or mentally wander. I keep the players engaged, and I don't hem or haw or dawdle. I used to try and juggle a dozen plot threads at once, thinking that giving players as many options as possible was best, but learned that only diluted the real core adventure, and players don't think about games outside of game time nearly as much as DMs do.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have been many different GM types over the years- a monte hauler, appeaser, played favorites, railroader...none of it was really ME though.

I captured lightning in a bottle in the mid-1990s running a Supers game set in a Wellsian/Vernian 1900. Everything clicked- good quasi-sandboxy campaign structure, good adventures, and player buy-in was near total.

That set the tone for my style ever since.

Alas, my execution of said approach has varied in quality of late, and I’ve been on GMing hiatus for...5 years?...recharging my batteries while seeing if any of my campaign ideas resonate with my group.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I've realized that IME, and YMMV, none of the piles of fiddly bits did anything to make the gameday play experience better and usually made it worse. So I quit running "heavy systems" and went to something that was mostly based around giving us a looser framework for players and referee to work in. It let me do what I seem to do better at, winging a lot of stuff and doing rulings on the fly rather than digging though rulebooks. I think when I bought the Rules Compendium for 3.5 that I realized a system that kind of needed a rulebook to clarify the piles of rulebooks that there had to be a better way! And I've found it for me and my game has been better since.

 

[Umbran]

Way back in the day, I was what I'd consider a pretty typical DM, kind of modeling my initial experience with modules as my basis. Each adventure was a little sandbox, mapped out in detail and populated, each one hand-crafted by me.

These days... I'm either working off a published adventure, or I am working off one page or less of notes, building far more in response to player thoughts in real time. I think that this was just in response to needs and recognition of skills. I don't have nearly as much free time as I did when I was a teen. A professional is going to do highly-prepared adventure design better than I can, but no professional designer can riff off my players better than I can.

Back in the day, I had no real concept of pacing. Stuff happened when it happened, and if a party banged its head against one puzzle for an entire session, so be it. These days, each session has something like a relevant pacing - different sessions have different styles (a legwork-heavy session will be different from an action-laden session), but I am always concerned with the rise and fall of drama.

In the beginning of my career, it was all D&D, all the time. Now, each campaign uses a different system.

Back in the day, gaming was an all-day thing, folks getting together for 8 hours at the table. Today, it is more like 3 hours.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I have less hair.

And less paper. I use a laptop, IPad, and Boogie board at the table; I only use pdfs, so other than one small notepad and the occasional prop, I'm paperless.

Ah, yes. A couple months ago, I finally relented and got a D&D beyond subscription, and use my IPAD for my character sheets. I resisted for a long time


Also, I too have much less hair lol

 

[Umbran]

]Also, I too have much less hair lol

Weirdly, I have more hair.

(Edit: I should explain - somewhere in grad school, I decided that the time and effort of keeping up some kind of haircut wasn't worth it, and I let my hair grow out until I could tie it back out of the way.)

 

[aco175]

I find that I prepare more. I used to have a map with notes written on it and some DCs for opening locks and such. Maybe I made a few pages on how the campaign was heading or once I made a sheet for the players with some notes and a map tailored to each PC. When DMsGuild came out, I found that I could expand my notes to a module more or less.

Now I make the adventure for my group, but also with a mind to post on DMsGuild. My maps are better and I create text boxes and have the monsters included. I find that things are planned better and as I write I can think about other ways of overcoming obstacles that the players may think of. I feel that there is an overall better product for my game.